"Memorial Day represents one day of national awareness and reverence, honoring those Americans who died while defending our Nation and its values. While we should honor these heroes every day for the profound contribution they have made to securing our Nation's freedom, we should honor them especially on Memorial Day."
that stated I'd like to launch into a rant on a more personal level....
I know a Military Man. he is a Marine. he fought in the war. serves in the reserves. I believe his reserve duty is up soon and he signed up to serve in another branch of the military.
Today as I was at the Memorial Day ceremonies in my town, which included an assembly on the town green and a parade, I watched, listened, sang along. This year there was a pretty large crowd, and I'm sure there was more along the 1-1 1/2 mile parade route. the parade itself wasn't as impressive, there were lots of kids, 2 school bands (1 for the Middle school and 1 for the High School) baseball teams, Boy scouts (no Girl scouts or Brownies though), the 4-H club, the Fire dept, and 1 small group of Military Men (in fairness there was about 10 Veterans who rode in antique cars as well), overall no more than 40 Military Men/Woman marching in the parade.
this makes me sad, to know that there are so many Men and Women who are currently active serving in the war and serving here at home, so many who have already served our country and have retired and so many more who fought for our Freedom they fought to ensure we have the lives we want to live in this beautiful country we call America.
today we honour the ones who died for their country. well some of us do at least. Some take the day off and relax, some have BBQ's, some go shopping, some have to work...gotta love the all-American way of spend spend spend...shop shop shop.
*****where am I going with all of this really??****
the Military man I spoke of above is away with his Girlfriend for a weekend getaway.
now I shouldn't judge, in fact I was completely cool with the 2 of them going away, I thought it was great.
then I went to the Memorial Day Ceremony and Parade and
when I saw the lack of participants...it made me very sad.
I started to think of all the people who use this weekend as a kick-off to summer, they go away, they to the beach. summer is starting, let the fun begin. I wonder if they think of the fallen soldiers while they swim, sunbathe, shop, BBQ, drink beers. the same soldiers who fought and died to allow them to have their freedom to do everything they want to do.
end rant.
that stated I'd like to launch into a rant on a more personal level....
I know a Military Man. he is a Marine. he fought in the war. serves in the reserves. I believe his reserve duty is up soon and he signed up to serve in another branch of the military.
Today as I was at the Memorial Day ceremonies in my town, which included an assembly on the town green and a parade, I watched, listened, sang along. This year there was a pretty large crowd, and I'm sure there was more along the 1-1 1/2 mile parade route. the parade itself wasn't as impressive, there were lots of kids, 2 school bands (1 for the Middle school and 1 for the High School) baseball teams, Boy scouts (no Girl scouts or Brownies though), the 4-H club, the Fire dept, and 1 small group of Military Men (in fairness there was about 10 Veterans who rode in antique cars as well), overall no more than 40 Military Men/Woman marching in the parade.
this makes me sad, to know that there are so many Men and Women who are currently active serving in the war and serving here at home, so many who have already served our country and have retired and so many more who fought for our Freedom they fought to ensure we have the lives we want to live in this beautiful country we call America.
today we honour the ones who died for their country. well some of us do at least. Some take the day off and relax, some have BBQ's, some go shopping, some have to work...gotta love the all-American way of spend spend spend...shop shop shop.
*****where am I going with all of this really??****
the Military man I spoke of above is away with his Girlfriend for a weekend getaway.
now I shouldn't judge, in fact I was completely cool with the 2 of them going away, I thought it was great.
then I went to the Memorial Day Ceremony and Parade and
when I saw the lack of participants...it made me very sad.
I started to think of all the people who use this weekend as a kick-off to summer, they go away, they to the beach. summer is starting, let the fun begin. I wonder if they think of the fallen soldiers while they swim, sunbathe, shop, BBQ, drink beers. the same soldiers who fought and died to allow them to have their freedom to do everything they want to do.
end rant.
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I had friends in from out of town, and we went to the zoo here. There were a lot of Navy enlisted men out, in their whites. They looked *so* young. It made me stop a minute and think about how we really are sending *kids* off to fight and die... all these young men, just barely adult... they looked so fresh-faced. It's very sad, indeed. I wish them all godspeed in their return home to their friends and families.
If we had not gone away for the weekend he would of been taking a trip to Arlington Cemetary to take part in services there.
No one knows the meaning of memorial day better than a person in the military... Trust me on that.